Home  Blog Making Sure PADs are Read
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Making Sure PADs are Read |
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Page 1 of 2 Consumers are concerned that hospitals won't have a copy of their PAD. For example, we’ve heard consumers ask: "How will the hospital know what is in my PAD? If I'm sick, I won't know to take it with me." What can be done about this? Is the situation beyond repair and the logistics too difficult to make sure a PAD is seen when it needs to be seen? Or are there some creative solutions out there?
Readers have left 8 comments.  1. UntitledGuest User, UnregisteredIT won't work until they get electronic medical records centralized. 2. PADs for CrisisErin T., Unregistered If someone could make sure my hospital had my advance directive on the main computer screen maybe it could get flagged if I went to the emergency room when I was having a crisis. I live in New Jersey and have talked with my case manager about this and he thinks its a good idea. Maybe this is something you could try. 3. Getting PADs to workGuest, Unregistered This is a BIG problem that won't be solved in this day and age of HIPAA. I think PADs are a good idea in the ideal world but not in mental health systems where no one has time or energy to find them in a pinch. I don't think this will work, sorry. 4. UntitledGuest, Unregistered my experience is that doctors won't even ask about advanced directives when going into the hospital. SO even if the advanced directives are in the records, they won't even ask or look. 5. UntitledGuest, Unregistered I think it is required by JCAHO for them to ask. I don't know if they always do ask, but they are supposed to. If JCAHO starts enforcing it, the hospitals will start asking the same way the do now with regular advance directives. I suppose one useful way to get PAD more used would be to lobby JCAHO about it rather than individual hospitals. 6. RN case managerGuest, Unregistered JCAHO absolutely requires that patients be asked if they have an advance directive and that if they do, and don't have a copy with them, that their family be requested to bring a copy in or if unable to do so, the patient is asked to submit an absence form that states their wishes if they are competent to do so. The hospital is required to document three attempts to obtain their AD. The problem for a psychiatric AD is that there is no JCAHO requirement to request that. In our psych unit it is asked, but it is not required to be by JCAHO. The best thing to do would be to supply your doctor with a copy and if he would not be your admitting doctor, make sure that your medical doctor has a copy too. And if you already have a chart from a prior admission, you can take a copy to the medical records department and ask that it be added to your medical record. And keep several copies, one for each doctor, one with a reliable friend or family member and one in the car.
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